I’m in the market for a new laptop and I purposefully waited for the new MacBooks to be released. I priced out a Dell XPS M1330 and once the features are matched up as close as I can make them, there’s a $60 price difference in favor of the Dell. $1599 vs $1533. The MacBook comes out ahead in GPU, FSB, and operating system (OS X > Vista because of Unix) and the Dell comes out ahead in terms of connectors (HDMI, Firewire, card reader, ExpressCard slot, etc.). I tried to configure a comparable Ubuntu machine, but the processor speed is fixed at 2.0 GHz and easily went over compared to the $1299 MacBook. The only competitor now is a late model 15″ MacBook Pro which for refurb starts at $1349—a very tasty price indeed. The MBP matches the advantages of the m1330 and has a better GPU, screen size, and resolution than the new MacBook. How much better is the GPU? Let’s see.

(more…)

Are you really saving any money? Not really.

(more…)

My TDMA service through AT&T Wireless is numbered. More so now since they’re upping the maintenance charge from $5 to $10 next month, giving me an even greater incentive to switch plans. The reason I’ve been holding back on upgrading, despite having an ancient brick of a phone (Nokia 5165), is because even with the maintenance charge, my bill is $10 less than the cheapest contract available from AT&T. Now that the price gap is smaller, this gave me the motivation to analyze my usage and compare rate plans.

(more…)